A few weeks ago, I attended a Baylor Alexander Hamilton Society lecture by American Enterprise Institute scholar Brent Orrell in which he called AI development the next industrial revolution and claimed that this transformation would occur far faster than the industrial and managerial revolutions. Regardless of whether you’re apprehensive or accepting of this technology, Orrell is right. Like all technologies before it, AI is here to stay. And unlike those earlier technologies, it directly challenges our most uniquely human attribute: our own intelligence.
The digital revolution of the 2000s and 2010s accelerated a similar trend, a move away from the manufacturing-based economics of the industrial revolution to a knowledge-based economy. With each innovation, the cognitive threshold needed to maintain a comfortable lifestyle appears to shift heavily in favor of those with greater intelligence. Human intelligence will become increasingly vital to be a shareholder in this new revolution rather than its victim as AI’s entrance reduces people’s ability and drive to think critically, let alone at all.
Human intelligence will become increasingly vital to be a shareholder in this new revolution rather than its victim as AI’s entrance reduces people’s ability and drive to think critically, let alone at all.
The selection pressure from this AI revolution compared to the industrial, managerial, and digital revolutions could be much more severe. As more basic administrative tasks and lower-level white-collar jobs are replaced by AI, the credentials and level of intelligence needed to secure stable employment that provides for a comfortable lifestyle increases. At the same time, AI allows more and more people to feign higher levels of competence, even as their actual ability to retain and acquire information decreases. The consulting firm Tyton Partners found that as of the spring 2024, 59% of students use AI at least twice per month. Data published by AI detection software company Turnitin claims that just over 1 out of every 10 papers submitted (11%) through the software contained AI generated content. And while not all of these uses are detrimental to the students themselves or society at large, many of them are.
Junior supply chain management and Russian major Stewart Gaydosik had this to say regarding the impact of cognitive decline attributed to AI: “I think it’s definitely accelerated it in some way with younger students. People that should be above average, or significantly above average [are] using AI to their detriment … people that are already below average intelligence [are using AI to] appear smarter than they actually are.”
Using AI effectively without outsourcing one’s thinking requires not only higher cognitive ability, but also restraint.
The implications for the world outside the academy also appear dismal. As white-collar jobs that require lower cognitive ability and little “critical thinking” to perform are replaced with AI, large segments of the population face obsolescence. Junior political science major Alex Kelley commented on the potential impact on employment. “I think when students use the AI to answer questions…and it’s everything that their future job can be…if they use AI to answer questions now, their boss can use the AI to answer those questions in the workplace…you are allowing the AI to be your cognitive limit.” Those who let AI think for them defer to the answers it deems “the best.” This means that the machine then becomes the standard, something which none of us should subordinate our own ideas to. Using AI effectively without outsourcing one’s thinking requires not only higher cognitive ability, but also restraint.
In his lecture, Mr. Orrell introduced us to what he called “the judgment economy.” Those who are well suited to this economy will be those who can think creatively, critically, and exercise good judgement. Our ability to think creatively is one of the primary differences between us and AI. Even more so than animals that live instinctually, AI operates mechanically, without creativity or true innovation. However, not every person is endowed with equal cognitive ability.
Psychologists traditionally suggested that an IQ of 120 is the threshold at which people gained creative or higher level cognition. More recent scholarship places the peak of the IQ-creativity association between approximately 110 and 120 after which this association remains relatively constant. Because the overall average IQ is 100 with a standard deviation of 15, only about 25% (~86 million people) of the American population possess the cognitive faculties to surpass or, at the very least, compete with AI. And while IQ doesn’t determine all outcomes across all jobs, it is a useful proxy to attempt to quantify the issue. Although there is no data for or good way to test this, the number of Americans who are both smarter than AI and willing to resist outsourcing their thinking is likely much lower than any of us would like.
Already, unemployment for recent graduates between the ages of 23-27 is just under 5%, up from 3.25% in 2019. Roughly 55,000 layoffs have already been at least partially attributed to AI. The present lack of quality employment for college graduates, which may degrade further, leaves the skilled trades as reliable, well-paying alternatives. Or so we are told. A simple supply and demand issue arises: America does not need millions more tradesmen. And if it had them, those wages would suddenly decline and become far less attractive, as happened to the salaries of computer scientists and coders. So what jobs will be left for people? This is a question that will loom over the horizon for as long as AI continues to improve.
AI has long-term potential to free humanity from much needless toil.
With this in mind, the future seems quite bleak. And it could be, though there should be some emphasis on could. The likelihood that AI causes mass labor displacement in the near future is dubious. For as long as it continues to make things up, cobble quotes together from multiple books and pass them off as verbatim, and struggle with basic math at times, we are far from a dystopia in any real sense. That being said, AI is not going away, and it will only continue to improve, meaning that this potential displacement is possible on a long enough timeline. AI has long-term potential to free humanity from much needless toil. Although, as in Mr. Orrell’s “judgment economy,” discernment will be needed to ensure that AI benefits the society generally, not merely the 25% who are lucky enough to escape its encroachment.